The second set of videos I recorded at my last painting demo covers glazing, and my methods for painting white.
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Archive for the 'Miniature Painting' Category
Here’s another one of the videos I recorded at my monthly painting demo. I cover washes quickly in this short tutorial.
Washes
This is it – the sculpting is all but done. Today’s guide is all about the fiddly bits of getting the thing together and turning it into a table worthy figurine.
Now it is time to take your jeweller’s saw and slice through her waist. Take your time and try to preserve any part of the pewter you want. File the rest of it to tidy up after your hack job.
Plan out your pin. I did a poor job of this, and had her slightly off center. I solved this by turning her so her right leg was forward like she was stepping forward onto that right foot.
I’m sure there’s a rule that you shouldn’t try to post a painting article on a site that the likes of Ghool and Althai write for.
If not, there should be. I mean it’s just common sense. Still, I figure that sometimes people may want to see the way mere mortals get stuff done, so Here Goes Nothing …
I’ll begin with my usual disclaimer – why are you asking someone still learning the craft rather than an expert like Arkentyre. His Brushthralls tutorial is where I went to, and what I’m aspiring to here. It occurs to me that my pyretroll from Beginner’s guide to sculpting viii is probably the worst model to base this tutorial on as when the paint job inevitably looks plain average, you won’t know if it’s the technique, my mediocre painting skills, or my novice sculpting skills. Anyway, here goes …
You need to begin with a plan.
Choose your tartan and work out what paints you intend to use to achieve those colours.
Things you should consider:
- How will the pattern look when contrasted with your troll’s skin colour / leather colours / metals. Tartans are often bright. Troll skins are often bright. The browns you use for leathers can often be very saturated. If you’re crazy enough to be painting a sash for a pyre troll, the fire and the trolls back are going to be very bright. That has potential to be a lot of clashing colours. This is why all of the studio tartans from the trollblood clans are variations on browns not vivid colours.
- Can I bear this tartan? If you’re painting trolls, you could be painting an awful lot of this tartan. Be sure you do like it.
- Do I have the colours I need? I’m going to give you the first of my tips – make sure your base colour comes straight out of a pot. Don’t make it a mix of two colours. You’ll be patching a lot of small botches with this colour, and you want easy access to it.
I’ve chosen Clan Gordon Tartan as it’s my old high school’s tartan and I like it.
Many painters struggle with their brushes, and have as many questions as there are types and brands of brushes. What brand is the best? What kind of hair should it have? How do I take care of them? How long will they last? Are the high quality brushes worth the price? I’ll attempt to answer all of these questions in this review.
In order to give the most objective opinion on which brushes I find to be the best, I placed an order for several different brands, and in several price ranges. I opted to include the ‘Big 3′ that all the professional miniature painters suggest; Windsor & Newton, Raphael, and Da Vinci. I have also included in this compaative review one less expensive brand, which is the same hair (Kolinsky Sable) as the ‘Big 3′; Rosemary & Co.
My brush for measure is the Windsor & Newton Series 7. I have used these brushes for over 5 years, and they are the standard against which all brushes I have used since are compared. I will concede that I used little else in my time painting professionally. But I found that I had no need to use anything else, as they were available locally, albeit expensive.
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In these two videos, I go over the basics of painting silver metallics, and briefly discuss some techniques for golds at the end of part 2.
Part 1
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Have you ever wanted to try out Secret Weapon Weathering pigments?
But, you have no idea how to use them? Here’s a quick video guide to using them for your bases.
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There are several ways to paint blood when it comes to miniature gaming. I prefer to use a combination of the red and brown P3 inks myself. The basic techniques I use can be found in the old Metamorphosis book or in the Legion of Everblight MkII faction book if you have them handy. In this article I’m going to talk about them in a little more depth and with application images as well as add some stuff of my own.
You only need two different inks for this:
- P3 Red Ink
- P3 Brown Ink
You’ll also need a decently size brush (I use a W&N S7 number 2 brush), a toothpick and several feet of plastic wrap to turn your workshop into something out of Dexter:
Six rules to live by.
- There is no right and wrong. Each of us must find our own happy painting spirit, and our own path of miniature painting. Others can offer helpful advice and guidance, telling us what has worked for them, but what worked for them may not work for us, and vice versa.
- There are no mistakes. There are only accidents. When painting with the happy painting spirit, it is up to us to make our accidents into happy accidents, which while not intended can bring interesting life to our miniatures.
- There is no fear. Nothing is more paralyzing to an artist than fretting that the mini won’t be good enough, or that the technique is too difficult, or that we won’t have time to finish. Just forge ahead, and we will always make progress.
- There are no deadlines. All of us have our own stresses, and miniature painting can contribute to that, if we have miniatures for clients, or miniatures which have to be finished for this gaming night or that convention. It is important sometimes to paint, just for ourselves, some pieces which are finished when we say they are, because we are happy with them, and not for any lesser reason.
- There are no critics. We should listen to others’ suggestions, but not feel bound to follow them or pay attention to criticism. It’s also good not to pay too much attention to our inner critics, especially in the early stages of a piece.
- There are no rules. Never be afraid to paint outside the lines!
The eyes have it. Introducing the lazy man’s way to cheat, and paint eyes.
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